heros U.1 L.10

according to zimbardo, heroic imagination consists of six social influence forces

heroic : focusing on the other

situation blindness :

learning one thing is enough to change your explanation of what happened and also how you feel about people involved in the story

the dangerous thing is that we act without taking into account such important aspects of a situation all the time, without realizing it and this can be hard to spot

going along with the beliefs or actions of a group can also influence individuals to do harmful and destructive things

group of peaceful protesters can turn into an angry mob when only a few members of the group became aggressive and violent

groups use peer pressure to encourage conformity, and because natural desires to be liked and belong to a group, even if its wrong

bystander effect :

being with a crowd can make it easy to avoid personal responisibility for taking action

psychologists have found that bystanders are less likely to intervene in emergency situations as the size of the group increases (called diffusion of responsibility)

the prescence of others makes one feel less personally responsible for responding to events (more people = less likely to help others)

people tend to assume others will provide necessary help, especially when there are many others around

obedience to authority :

sometimes people do harmful things because they are following the orders of an authority figure

usually authorities are fair and serve as role models

problems arise when seemingly just authority begins to act unjustly

typically in most nations there is no training in families or schools to distinguish between just & unjust authorities

stanely milgram : studied

outgroup prejudice and discrimination :

the groups that we perceive people belong to can deeply impact how we treat them

one factor that influences the formation of stereotypes is the natural human tendency to form groups based on a common identity

demonstrated through the minimal group paradiagm

in an experiment demonstrating this, individuals who have just met and who have no real similarities are assigned group membership based on the flip of a coin

individuals rate fellow members of their group more favourably than others

any visible feature can be used to create groupings such as eye colour, ear shape, tongues

group identitiy leads to division of ones social world into “us” which is the ingroup and “them” which is the outgroup

many people use group identity as a basis for evaluating others, even when this leads to forming incorrect conclusions

people tend to rate members of the outgroup more similarly to each other, and exagerrate differences between groups

this tendency forms the basis of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination

minimal group paradiagm :

method for investigating the minimal conditions required for discrimination to occur between groups

experiments using this approach have revealed that even arbitrary and virtually meaningless distinctions between groups such as colour of their shirt, can trigger a tendency to favour your own group at the expense of others

social roles and expectations

many social psychologists subscribe to the belief that we take on and act out certain roles according to the expectations placed on us by cultures and societies

the roles we internalize from mother to manager, are associated with certain expectations and norms of behaviours

we have mental scripts or understandings about what behaviour is appropriate in different settings

these unconcious scripts powerfully influence the words we use, the way we view situations and other people and even our emotional responses